6/9/17

Things always seem just a little better on Friday - TGIF, a feeling of weekend parole from the M-F work grind (that's Monday to Friday, just to be clear, not the other M-F that tart-tongued people all too frequently use). Fridays make one feel lighthearted and in a mood to meander about the Metsies. So let's meander.

After a string of very painful defeats, and sinking lower and lower in the wild card standings, Wednesday night looked bleak for the Mets. Wheeler has been a bright spot on this season - in the spring, you wondered if he would ever really be back. He in fact is back and has been their best starting pitcher so far this season.

But he was up against the mighty Yu Darvish....in Texas.... hard to feel confident at all going into this game and feeling it was going to be another nail in the Mets' season coffin.

Somehow, though, Jay Bruce hit 2 homers off the Mighty Yu and Wheeler pitches really well and leads 3-1 when he exits.

But the Mets have lost in many ways in 2017 but none more than the globally warmed, melted down bullpen. Was it possible that the pen could hold the lead?

What do you think - course not. Blevins surrenders a game-tying 2 run shot in the 8th (boolevins!) and Zach ends up with another in a very long line of undeserved NDs for a quality Mets' starter.

Then Duda doubles in the 9th, Matt Reynolds (he's still on the team?) pinch runs and scores from 2nd base on a ground out! Somehow, when your toes are on the edge of the cliff, something strange happens to make you step back. Sometimes a team rebounds from the swirling morass following such weirdness.

Now, the beleaguered staff gets Matz and Lugo back this weekend against the Braves. Cespedes seems to be perhaps a few days away from returning, having played left field for St Lucie Thursday night, going 0-4 but making contact all four times up.

Maybe this team has a run in it yet.

Besides the major league squad, three minor league pitchers continued to excel:

Merandy Gonzalez, who loves the word scoreless, went six scoreless innings for Columbia, with just three hits and a walk and 5 Ks, moving to 8-1 and leaving him with a 1.56 ERA and 0.90 WHIP. St Lucie surely beckons for this co-ace.

Chris Flexen tossed a 7 inning complete game shutout in his AA Binghamton debut, surrendering just five hits, while striking out six. Very, very encouraging for a guy to dominate in a start like that in AA - maybe he is ready to start for the Mets by early 2018.Nabil Crismatt allowed 1 run in 5.1 IP for St Lucie, and has now allowed just 4 ER in his last 6 starts, with 41 Ks in 39 IP. Time for a promo to AA?Hitting wise, Dash Winningham clubbed two homers Thursday night, giving him 9 HRs and 41 RBIs for Columbia. Even more impressive is what he's done after April: 30 games, 9 doubles, 8 HRs, 27 RBIs, .294. Another possible future Mets first baseman.Lastly, Tim Tebow: after a recent offensive drought, Tebow got on base 6 times in his last 3 games, including 2 doubles and a walk in 3 at bats last night. Interestingly, last night, I saw a movie called Ring the Bell, a Christian-themed sports movie where a hot young sports agent goes out to try to sign two baseball phenoms in the same rural town, one of whom ended up late in the movie pitching to Ben Zobrist, in a battle which could best be described as a draw, while John Kruk and Rick Sutcliffe were watching (the agent invited all 3 to see this guy). During the movie, the agent asks the phenom who his favorite ballplayer is. He replies "Tim Tebow." The agent says "yeah, but he's a football player." The prospect replies, "yeah, but he could play baseball too, if he wants."The movie was made in 2013, three years before Tebow signed with the Mets to play baseball. Very interesting.

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comments:

Interesting stuff as always Thomas and I'm guessing the schedule over the next month plus will certainly determine our fate as far as buyers or sellers with most of us sure it's time to turn this thing over and look to 2018. Did you hear the interview Boomer and Carton had with Syndergaard yesterday? He still thinks not taking the MRI and adding 17 lbs of muscle last winter was the right thing to do....methinks he still doesn't get it. Oh well time will tell.

Thor needs to have a conversation with Tom Seaver, who I am sure would be more than happy to share his accumulated wisdom. Seaver said recently that heavy weights for pitchers is a mistake, and he used light toning weights and worked on his leg strength, with obviously good results.

Thor may be thick-muscled - and thick-headed.

If Thor becomes injury prone, he may someday soon be challenged by the likes of guys I discussed today - Flexen, Crismatt, and Gonzalez.

Press conferences can be good or bad - just make sure James Comey is not there taking notes.

If Tebow's press conference is to give up baseball, there will be a lot of disappointed team owners in the minors who have been blessed with a huge jump in attendance when he shows up, like recently seeing Hagerstown drew 8 times as many people to his games there as all the other ones.

Mack, very true. I guess it comes down to, does he think he has upside or not.

For instance, Michael Paez was lousy in Brooklyn last year after playing ball in college. Lousy. Then he got off to a lousy start for Columbia this year. Suddenly, it clicked and he has surged since.

If Tebow feels there is no "surge" coming, he could pull the plug and consider it a valiant effort and adventure.

Or maybe his timetable was to get bumped to St Lucie mid-season, and maybe the Mets felt he wasn't doing well enough to squeeze someone else's playing time.

To remove the logjam, though, is simple; I'd let Jennings and Boyd go from AAA, maybe Taijeron too, and move those OF's below them upwards. For instance, Eric Young Jr is hitting over 100 points higher than Jennings; Young's parent club was impressed enough (and down a certain outfielder - some guy named Trout) to call Jr. up and he is hitting .333 in 33 ABs. Jennings, by contrast, is done.

It may be Friday, but It's the bad M-F I keep muttering while watching this team.

The kids down in Sputh Carolina sure can pitch, huh? Something to dream on for sure. Dash Winningham is suddenly getting my attention for something other than his name. Might have to change that to Bash. That Cespedes kid is hitting .000 in A+ this year, but he made contact all four times yesterday. Has tools, could have a future. Dunn and Lindsay seem to be putting it together, more to smile about. And Tebow has a press conference? So many jokes, but none of them very nice, so I'll keep them to myself.

Mike, the Mets have been feeding us Pop Tarts this year. Now, how about something nourishing, like a 4 game sweep of the Braves? If not, the schedule then gets much harder, and it may be too late for this season.

I agree that they are at a crossroads. Here are some numbers to consider (maybe I should make this a regular article);

The Mets are currently 25-32 which is a .439 winning percentage.

Over the course of a full season, they would be 71-91 (crappy).

If we can agree that the NL is weak this year (outside of the division leaders), would 85 wins contend for the second wild card?

IF so, they would need to go 60-45 the rest of the way, which is a .571 winning percentage, which equates to a 93 win team over the course of a full season.

Possible? Yeah, but that is if everyone ahead of them in the standings keep stumbling along. More then likely, it will take 90 wins to be in contention, which means a 65-40 finish! (not a rosy of a picture).

For reference, the Mets are closer (4.5 games ahead) to the worst team in baseball (Phillies), then they are the team that would be the second wild card (Dodgers) who are currently NINE games ahead.

Mike, they have jockeyed their way into a long shot, and need a lot of things to go right from here on out, starting THIS WEEKEND, to have a shot at the playoffs. Sweep the Braves and we can reassess on Monday morning. At this point, 3 out of 4 against a weaker opponent is not what they need. PITCH! SWEEP!

They had the Mets picking a high school pitcher that would be 5-6 years away... and when the Nats came up, they said their choisc for that team (which NEVER shies away from controversial baseball players) was obvious...